The Global Humanitarian Technology Conference is a new showcase of low-cost, tough, and fixable devices for the majority of the world that earns less than $4 a day.

The Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and other organizations spend millions every year to vaccinate people against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilus influenza B, hepatitis A and B, polio, and other diseases. Nearly all of those vaccines must be refrigerated, but not frozen, while they are stored or they can go bad. In many countries, though, refrigerators are at the mercy of intermittent power supplies. And even in developed countries, about 13 percent of vaccines are accidentally exposed to freezing temperatures—the number in developing countries is double that.This solar-powered refrigerator with a clever freeze-proofing mechanism addresses both the power and the temperature problems. U.K.-based True Energy's refrigerator can run all day after an average of 4 hours of charging in the sun. It can also charge at an available outlet, and use its batteries as backup if the power cuts out.The device exploits the physical properties of water to keep its contents at a constant 4 degrees Celsius—just above freezing. Water is most dense at that temperature, decreasing in density as it either warms or cools from that point. In the True Energy design, a water bag surrounds the cavity where vaccines are stored, and it's connected to a water reservoir above it. As the reservoir cools, the 4-degree water falls because of its density, occupying the water bag. The reservoir on top can even ice over, but the bag will keep a cold-but-not-freezing 4 degrees C around the vaccines. If the ice builds up too thick, the cooling unit switches off.The refrigerators have a high price tag at $2000. But Stewart Jones, who heads True Energy, says that competition and doing future manufacturing in India could eventually cut the price by half.

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Solar-Powered Vaccine Frig

Solar-Powered Vaccine Frig

The Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and other organizations spend millions every year to vaccinate people against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilus influenza B, hepatitis A and B, polio, and other diseases. Nearly all of those vaccines must be refrigerated, but not frozen, while they are stored or they can go bad. In many countries, though, refrigerators are at the mercy of intermittent power supplies. And even in developed countries, about 13 percent of vaccines are accidentally exposed to freezing temperatures—the number in developing countries is double that.

This solar-powered refrigerator with a clever freeze-proofing mechanism addresses both the power and the temperature problems. U.K.-based True Energy’s refrigerator can run all day after an average of 4 hours of charging in the sun. It can also charge at an available outlet, and use its batteries as backup if the power cuts out.

The device exploits the physical properties of water to keep its contents at a constant 4 degrees Celsius—just above freezing. Water is most dense at that temperature, decreasing in density as it either warms or cools from that point. In the True Energy design, a water bag surrounds the cavity where vaccines are stored, and it’s connected to a water reservoir above it. As the reservoir cools, the 4-degree water falls because of its density, occupying the water bag. The reservoir on top can even ice over, but the bag will keep a cold-but-not-freezing 4 degrees C around the vaccines. If the ice builds up too thick, the cooling unit switches off.

The refrigerators have a high price tag at $2000. But Stewart Jones, who heads True Energy, says that competition and doing future manufacturing in India could eventually cut the price by half.

True Energy

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Solar-Powered Antenna

Solar-Powered Antenna

A planar antenna is often found in mobile hardware such as cellphones and GPS devices, like the one seen here. It is essentially a metal plate mounted on a larger metallic base, forming a thin, rectangular unit that is a lightweight spacesaver. Suresh Kumar saw that it could be more: Subbing in photovoltaic cells for the metal that is usually used in the antenna can turn it into a power generator.

When it is fitted with solar PV cells replacing the upper metal plate, the antenna can still transmit and receive radio waves as well as ordinary versions. Kumar led a team at Pavendar Bharathidasan College of Engineering and Technology in Tamilnadu, India, to test how well they could generate power.

The researchers tested their antennas as vehicle-mounted power generators for GPS units and for satellite radio receivers that can operate off the grid. Off-grid communications are especially important in rural areas of developing countries, where outlets and up-to-date information are both scarce. Other applications for the antennas, Kumar and his team say, could be environmental monitors and on solar-powered autonomous aircraft, where weight and space matter.

Solar-Powered Vaccine Frig

The Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and other organizations spend millions every year to vaccinate people against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilus influenza B, hepatitis A and B, polio, and other diseases. Nearly all of those vaccines must be refrigerated, but not frozen, while they are stored or they can go bad. In many countries, though, refrigerators are at the mercy of intermittent power supplies. And even in developed countries, about 13 percent of vaccines are accidentally exposed to freezing temperatures—the number in developing countries is double that.

This solar-powered refrigerator with a clever freeze-proofing mechanism addresses both the power and the temperature problems. U.K.-based True Energy’s refrigerator can run all day after an average of 4 hours of charging in the sun. It can also charge at an available outlet, and use its batteries as backup if the power cuts out.

The device exploits the physical properties of water to keep its contents at a constant 4 degrees Celsius—just above freezing. Water is most dense at that temperature, decreasing in density as it either warms or cools from that point. In the True Energy design, a water bag surrounds the cavity where vaccines are stored, and it’s connected to a water reservoir above it. As the reservoir cools, the 4-degree water falls because of its density, occupying the water bag. The reservoir on top can even ice over, but the bag will keep a cold-but-not-freezing 4 degrees C around the vaccines. If the ice builds up too thick, the cooling unit switches off.

The refrigerators have a high price tag at $2000. But Stewart Jones, who heads True Energy, says that competition and doing future manufacturing in India could eventually cut the price by half.

True Energy

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Solar-Powered Antenna

A planar antenna is often found in mobile hardware such as cellphones and GPS devices, like the one seen here. It is essentially a metal plate mounted on a larger metallic base, forming a thin, rectangular unit that is a lightweight spacesaver. Suresh Kumar saw that it could be more: Subbing in photovoltaic cells for the metal that is usually used in the antenna can turn it into a power generator.

When it is fitted with solar PV cells replacing the upper metal plate, the antenna can still transmit and receive radio waves as well as ordinary versions. Kumar led a team at Pavendar Bharathidasan College of Engineering and Technology in Tamilnadu, India, to test how well they could generate power.

The researchers tested their antennas as vehicle-mounted power generators for GPS units and for satellite radio receivers that can operate off the grid. Off-grid communications are especially important in rural areas of developing countries, where outlets and up-to-date information are both scarce. Other applications for the antennas, Kumar and his team say, could be environmental monitors and on solar-powered autonomous aircraft, where weight and space matter.

flickr / Miguel Vera

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Salinity Indicator for Shrimp Farms

The numbers don’t lie: Commercial shrimp farms harvest 1500 to 3000 kg of shrimp per acre, while the small-plot shrimpers in Bangladesh average 500 kg (1100 pounds) per acre. The difference is in their water.

Small-plot shrimp farmers in Bangladesh can triple or better their yields if they can get the salinity right. But salinity sensors cost up to $6000, and many of these farmers can’t afford even the cheapest units at $100. So many simply sniff the air or dip a finger in the water to taste the salt levels in their ponds.

Stephen Honan, a student at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., designed this sensor which costs $5.29 in materials, and could retail at less than $9. It’s made from readily available parts and local technicians can assemble it. It requires no electricity—just give it a shake to charge it.

The sensor has been through 50 field trials, and some ergonomic changes are under way.

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Streamlining Drug Production

For more than half a century, the pharmaceutical industry has hacked chicken eggs to turn them into single-use vaccine factories. The process is inefficient, and some tinkerers are developing other methods to do this on a small scale. But over the years, companies have become good at using eggs, and they are heavily invested in the process. So rather than scrapping it completely, Eluemuno Blyden, founder of Afrivax, has streamlined the process with recombinant DNA vectors.

The vector is a piece of a virus that infects chickens. Blyden’s team attaches that vector to part of a flu virus, rabies or, in theory, any number of proteins that they would like to replicate. The vector acts as a sort of escort, allowing the protein survive inside the egg. With this technique, a single egg can produce about a dozen doses of vaccine, compared to the single dose that eggs produce now, and could be adapted for new strains of bird or swine flu, HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria vaccines.

Blyden foresees large egg production facilities as an economic booster in developing countries, and if they were attached to biotech labs, countries could quickly manufacture the vaccines they need, improve health care at home, and even head off potential pandemics before they escape to the rest of the world.

flickr / bgottsab

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The Wound Pump

Applying low-pressure, controlled suction to a wound can help it heal three times faster than normal. Hospitals use vacuum-like devices that can speed the healing of burns, cuts, traumatic wounds, and diabetic ulcers, but these negative-pressure wound-therapy machines cost up to $25,000 and can gorge on as much as 70 watts of electricity. They are not practical for developing countries, and are too bulky for emergency and military use in the field.

Danielle Zurovcik and a team at MIT made a lightweight alternative that requires no electricity and is ridiculously cheap. The prototype is based on a handheld bellows pump and costs about $3. Tests show that the bellows, with a rubber plug and surgical tubing, performs much like the commercial machines. It requires only 10 seconds of pumping every two to three days to work, thanks to extra attention to air leakage: Commercial machines leak air while they operate, so they require a steady power supply to maintain constant suction. The MIT team identified that problem and stopped up the leaks in their device. Now just a little mechanical power can create suction that lasts for days.

Danielle Zurovcik

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Water Disinfection Indicator

Diarrhea, usually caused from drinking bad water, kills 1.8 million people every year—most of them under the age of 5. There are plenty of ways to treat, filter, and distill water, but when basic infrastructure is not there, an ordinary clear plastic bottle can suffice. Left in the sun for about 6 hours, heat and UV rays destroy microbes that cause disease. However, lots of unpredictable factors, such as cloudy weather or colored bottles, can change the amount of time needed to disinfect the water, so it’s hard to get it right. "Five million people around the world are doing this, and it’s been taught for 15 years. But it’s difficult to teach and expensive to teach," Charlie Matlack says.

To take the guesswork out of the technique, Matlack and colleagues at the University of Washington developed an indicator. The device straps onto a bottle and uses a photovoltaic panel to sense the amount of sunlight streaming through the water. Two more PV panels jut out like wings on either side of the device to power it. Positioned behind the bottle relative to the sun, the sensor can account for variations in the bottle’s opacity and the murkiness of the water. Matlack believes that, with large-scale production, the device could cost only $5. He formed the nonprofit PotaVida to finish the device’s development and take it to market.

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Eco-Friendly Cement

Indian slums could get a much-needed overhaul with cheap, environmentally friendly alkali-activated cement. A team from Drexel University in Philadelphia and the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai created a mixture made of sooty fly ash from coal-fired power plants and industrial iron slag, the glassy compounds that are smelted out of iron ore when it’s purified. The material is cheap, reuses potential environmental pollutants, and produces almost no carbon dioxide during its manufacture.

The scientists calculated that compared with regular cement, their recipe is 44 percent cheaper and reduces energy use and carbon dioxide by 92 percent. In a Mumbai slum, the cheaper cement can reduce overall construction costs by 3 to 5 percent, the team found.

Alkali-activated cement has been around for years, but the researchers developed this recipe specifically to conform to construction standards for cement strength. Their cement meets Indian 28-day strength standards.

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Acoustic Landmine Detector

There are as many as 60 million mines still deployed in 70 countries worldwide, and they kill or maim about 26,000 people every year, the UN reports.

Soundwaves can detect landmines, even plastic ones, without setting them off. A team at the Indian government’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing is developing an acousto-ultrasonic device that could hang off the front of armored vehicles to sweep suspected mine fields. Acoustic resonance imaging detects mines under different types of soil and can tell them apart from rocks and other debris.

In tests, like the one seen here, the 128-sensor array has successfully scanned 7.5 square feet per second in four types of soils: mud, clay, silt, and sand. The detector could be fooled by a mine-like object, the researchers say, but tests have shown that it is usually accurate.